


In the Wings

by t0talcha0s



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: (Though the ending doesn’t really matter), Canon Compliant, Companion thoughts, Independent Ending, Lucky 38, Post-Game, Reflection, What do you do when the courier leaves?, dig through the shit in his apartment and try not to feel cheated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:16:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27577063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t0talcha0s/pseuds/t0talcha0s
Summary: It had only been a few months since he was shot out in Goodsprings. There was barely time for the wasteland to learn his name, only time to feel his impact. His footprint pressed deep into Vegas. But, now that his job was finished and he was done, he felt no obligation to stick around.Those who knew him, actually knew him, a little at least, who had been exposed too quickly to the brightness of his character, were left wanting in his wake.
Relationships: Arcade Gannon/Courier, Courier & companions
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	In the Wings

There is no one in the Lucky 38. Hasn’t been for decades now, maybe centuries. There’s the securitrons and Mr. House but no one’s seen him in years and half of the strip isn’t sure he’s real anymore. His goons are though, their guns are too. A gambler, gone off jet or whatever chems he’d scraped up, wanders into Gomorrah and proclaims he’s seen someone enter. Someone recognizable, but vaguely, someone in armor beat to hell with a plasma rifle strapped to his back. A strong one, like something the Van Graffs would peddle, not cheap either. No one paid him any mind. 

A chairman, whistling down the strip gayly, pockets full and comfortable says he saw a Ghoul head into the 38. Someone in a beat up jumpsuit _with some other language on the back._ But Ghouls weren’t common in Vegas and no one went into the 38. Though the rumor travelled, that same figure, the courier, who traversed the steps of the 38 with comfort, nodded past the securitrons. He became a bedtime story, something whispered between gamblers, musicians. 

“He got me this job.” 

“You met him!” 

“Hell of a charmer, I’d believe anything he’d say.” 

Then, the Lucky 38 wasn’t so empty. It wasn’t occupied per se but it wasn’t uninhabited. Figures traversed its steps and wandered its empty slot halls. 

“I saw a nightkin on the steps last night.” 

“My brother said he saw his doctor going in there, the one who helped him get clean, up in the old Mormon fort.”

“Makes sense he’d need a doctor, you hear he cleared out the deathclaws in the quarry.” 

“Deathclaws? What’s he need a nightkin for if he can take down deathclaws?” 

“Maybe that’s why he needed a nightkin. To take down the deathclaws.”

“You think a nightkin could beat a deathclaw?” 

“Well that’s an interesting question, depends on the weapon” 

It was quite full actually, the 38, all the beds of the presidential suite accounted for. The master bedroom was left empty, empty and rarely used. Sometimes the Courier would stumble in, limping and fuzzy headed and some of them would fawn over him and he’d wave them away and sleep it off. He’d wake in the morning and stretch his muscles, laze to the kitchen with a pistol on his hip and scarf down a breakfast. Quite the appetite he was said to have, and a sweet tooth too, a soft spot for Sarsaparilla. There were only two other beds in the apartment, usually occupied by those without close living quarters. Arcade insisted he could just pop over from Freeside when the needed him so he usually slept in the old Mormon fort, though not always, and Lily refused a bed:

“I’m too big dearie. Besides, you’re all younger and need your energy.”

Veronica and Cass shared one of the beds, though Cass always luxuriated in the space when Veronica was gone, was tempted to kick her to the floor for good with how nice it felt to sprawl out under all of the blankets. She sometimes had the audacity to crash in the master bedroom, adoring the decadence of her own room and a door that _locked_. Raul and Boone switched off. Neither of them were too keen on shacking up together and Boone insisted he’d slept on the ground enough in the recon days to be used to it, but his back sometimes ached for the cushiness of his Novac mattress. 

It wasn’t always the same, someone was always missing, you could never be assured your bedfellow would be there the next night and you could never assume they wouldn’t be back at any moment. In the times where he was off the rest would mull about the apartment or the strip or would carry on their own ventures while they waited for the Courier to return and pick who would risk their life with him next. A flash of teeth from beneath a hat, never phrased as a question. 

_I think we should travel together_

Always room for dissent, but never room for doubt. It wasn’t like any of them ever even thought to say no. 

But now. The Lucky 38 was less populated now though, with the Courier gone. Most of them hadn’t been there, just the robot, the sniper, and the Courier. Able to witness his final shots in the Mojave, how he made generals stand down to him. His gun and his teeth glinting alike. The Courier was gone. That’s all there was to him, a shadow of a smile and his gun in the moonlight, a nod goodbye. 

“Holy shit!” Veronica exclaimed, hefting some modified fat man onto her shoulder from the Courier’s gun case. He’d left the 38 full. Of clothing and guns and companions and all sort of useless things, there were even a few gold bars in one of the footlockers. _‘I think he and Arcade used to pawn them at the gun runners every few days’_ it was explained. “Could he even lift this damn thing?” 

“Found it in the quarry, took down a mother deathclaw with it.” Boone said. He was calm about the whole situation, sitting a leg over the other in one of the plush chairs, a cigarette in his fingers, his rifle tucked up against his calf. “The thing shoots nukes, there’s some in the cabinet if you’re looking to try.” Most of the crew, the people the Courier’d collected, were clearing out of the place, trying to find their new home in the new Vegas. Raul had already returned to his shack, though he promised repair services for a non-discounted fee if any of the others cared to stop by, and Lily had begun her trek out west, looking for something neither she nor her meds could remember. Arcade, upon hearing about the Courier’s end had stopped by the shared apartment. Maybe it was for old time’s sake, maybe it was to wish the rest of them well. He was on one of the beds holding the pillow in his lap, absentmindedly scratching behind Rex’s ear where he was curled up beside him. 

“What do we do with all this,” Cass turned from the closet with a glove made of a shaved bear’s claw in her grip. “Like what even is this?” 

“Didn’t he get that in Utah?” 

“I forgot he went to Utah.” 

“It was right after we took down that damn Crimson Caravan Company, I remember thinking it was funny he immediately took a job at some other.” Cass dropped it unceremoniously onto the floor of the closet, going back to sorting through the various clothes: heavy metal armor, labcoats, old nightgowns and sweater vests, “Ronnie isn’t this one of yours?” A gunmetal grey helmet, dark slits of eyes. 

“Yeah,” she said, barely surprised, she’d seen he and the elder converse comfortably. He roamed the halls of the bunkers like he’d grown up in them. One of the scribes said he even bothered to chase down a virus in the archives _ran from terminal to terminal like a kid but I’ll be damned if he didn’t get the job done._ She’d set the fat man down, had brought her pack up on the bed next to Arcade to arrange it. On top was her gifted dress, folded with the utmost care, creaseless. 

They sat in silence for a while, the four of them, the panting of Rex’s contented breaths the loudest noise in the room, the shuffling of hangers on their rod. 

“Well,” it was Boone who spoke first “goodbye.” He put out his cigarette and rose from his spot, rifle on his back before he was even fully upright. 

“You’re leaving?” Arcade, from the bed, he seemed to be struggling with the sentimentality of it all, he hadn’t thought his gift of his family armor, the lunch break visit from the courier would be the end of their time. 

“This place was always stuffy.” 

“Are you gonna take anything,” Cass kicked one of the gun cases with her foot “you’d be shocked the amount of weapons he left here, he could arm all of Vegas.” 

“He was a bit of a freak with his guns,” Veronica agreed “he always had me carrying enough to break my back, and only because he was already loaded up.” 

“I’ll do alright.” 

“You knew him the longest, didn’t you, you were with him when I met him.” Arcade remembered the day, the two men in his tent _Why don’t you come with me?_ he was hard to deny, all sweet tongues and luck. _As the old saying goes, two's company, but three's a small army, I’m not trying to enlist._ his smile as he nodded. And later, just him, dawn breaking at his back, this legend of a man _I think we should travel together._ it was easy for Arcade to convince himself, easy to look up and say yes. “You’re just going to leave?” 

“It’s not like he stuck around.” 

“How’d you shack up with him anyway?” Cass had pulled some dusty shoes from the closet, testing them against her ankles, admiring how they looked in the mirror. She met eyes with Boone in his reflection. 

“He helped me out.” 

“With what?” Boone shot her a look, hoped it would read through his sunglasses. “Come on I’m just curious, I don’t get what he saw in you.” 

“Give it a rest, you know he’s not going to tell you.” Veronica spoke from where she’d settled next to Arcade, pack forgotten, giving Rex’s belly some attention. 

“You shouldn’t be so stuck up y’know Boone, learn to open up to people.” 

“Yeah, I’ll work on that.” 

“Where’re you even going to go?” Arcade, who was content to be stuck in Freeside, in Vegas, resented the idea of the loss of these people, the loss of one person was already enough. 

“I’ll be around.” 

“Around Vegas?” Boone hiked his pack up further on his shoulder

“Around.” The other three wished him well, each in their own way, and Rex jumped up from the bed as Boone moved to the door, nudging his nose against this calf. 

“Why don’t you take him?” Cass asked. “I’m not really looking for a pet.” He looked down at the dog. 

“He’s the King’s.” 

“He’s not using him,” Veronica urged “besides he probably likes you more since you were with him when he got his new brain and all.”

“New brain?” Arcade was right next to her, legs crossed on the blankets, the sheets bunching under his knees and hips and ankles. 

“You didn’t hear about that? He walked all the way to Johnstown just to get Rex a new brain because he was dying.” 

“Jacobstown” Boone corrected “he wasn’t dying, just going crazy.” 

“Same difference” Cass had a crude weapon in her fist, dog tags sticking from between her knuckles.Veronica smiled at her. 

“You’d know.” Boone, without his thinking of it, had already begun to pet at Rex’s neck. 

“Sure.” He agreed, fingers beneath the dog’s collar. He was planning to just drop Rex off at the King’s place if he got to be too much of a handful. It wouldn’t be bad to have a hound, just to cover his back, NCR snipers worked in pairs after all. When he’d found his way out the door, Rex trailing at his heels, the others looked awkwardly between the three of them.

“Think he’ll mind if I take this?” Cass had a floppy-brimmed hat on her head, it almost covered her eyes. “And, more importantly, do I look good in it?”

“You look fine” Veronica said, at the same time Arcade insisted 

“I don’t think he’ll miss it, I don’t even know if he’ll be back.” The girls frowned at him. 

“You’re sticking around Vegas too right?” Veronica almost went to reach her hand for his atop the blanket, stopped herself just short.. 

“I’ll be with the Followers in Freeside, I’m sure I’ll be busy trying to whip Vegas into shape now. It’s been sitting on its ass for too long.” Veronica chuckled.

“Yeah so it’s not like any of us” she meant _him_ “won’t be able to find you.” 

“You saying you’ll visit?” 

“If I get kicked out of the Brotherhood I’ll happily come see you with paladins hot on my heels.” Arcade laughed, Cass too. 

“Will you ever let us know where to find this Brotherhood of yours?” She asked, finally stepping away from where she’d been rifling through the closet, a few coats draped over her arm. 

“Oh fuck no.” Cass laughed again. 

“I’ll be wandering, I’ll find it one day.” 

“I hope you don’t, they’re more than willing to shoot outsiders.”

“Then I’ll drop your name.”

“That’ll get you shot twice as fast.” They shared another chuckle, though their remembrances, their false-lived promises to hold onto something he was holding together, were quickly lost to the big emptiness of the apartment. The Courier’d left no clarity in his absence, his goodbyes quick and unplanned, just the result of the circumstances he’d created. He was fleeting and dazzling and it wasn’t quite so easy to blink away his afterimage. Arcade and Veronica made their way off the bed, the three of them taking the familiar descent of the elevator, the steeping flatness of the outside steps. The sun was low. The final rays of light kissing the pinks and greens and blues of the neon. _He once took me to meet the artist y’know, the one who makes all of those signs._ His goodbye, it was assumed, was as breezy and quick as the rest of him. It’d just been a few months since he’d survived that shot, the wound was barely healed, pink and puckered and pained where it met his hairline. 

The point of the Lucky 38 cast a massive shadow across the strip. But, as opposed to the looming silence the sight had previously held it was now, to some, a short-lived, sweet-lived home.

**Author's Note:**

> The kid’s first fallout fic, it was a long time coming, hope it treated you well. If you liked it leave me a little note here or hmu on Twitter @poetforprofit.


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